


At First, and Then

by dreamofhorses



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF, Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff, Happy Ending, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M, how did I end up writing fluff, this isn't me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-07
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-05-03 11:05:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14567661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamofhorses/pseuds/dreamofhorses
Summary: Title taken from a really great This Mortal Coil song.Just a bit of fluff for the 10 Minute Challenge. This was really out of my usual wheelhouse and was a lot of fun to write. I decided since "write for only 10 minutes" wasn't enough of a challenge I'd also clean out my fic list, so a lot of these vignettes came from ideas that have been kicking around for a while. Thanks as always to my beloved Slackerz :timmybow:





	At First, and Then

At first it had seemed like nothing. They were actors, it was a movie, they were safe, it was their craft. But of course, deep under the snow there’s nothing for days and weeks and months, and then a tiny  _ crack _ , and then an avalanche that seems inevitable once it happens but started with a hairline fracture that could have left the whole mountainside together if its angle was five degrees different.

And an avalanche had started it, had shut off the electricity in their hotel at Sundance, that first winter, no big emergency, just a couple of hours, but Tim was young and got bored easily and he’d knocked on Armie’s door, asked “whatcha doing?” and twirled his hair around his finger and Armie swore he felt something tremble inside himself that had never before moved. They’d laid in Armie’s bed with candles the concierge brought from the front desk, and Armie played “Cool Hand Luke” on his laptop. When Tim fell asleep and drifted into Armie’s lap, murmuring like a kitten as he dreamed, Armie held his breath, knowing once he released it that thing in him would shift again, and god knows where they’d end up.

And then there was Europe, at the end of the press junket, where he’d been so out of his element and in awe of Tim’s skill with foreign journalists, with French, with  _ life _ , that he’d slipped a couple of times and just stared. Stared, and felt something cool and inevitable slide down his spine while he watched Tim’s lips form words he didn’t understand but that he somehow  _ knew _ were good, and kind, and light like Tim himself. Armie started wearing a hair tie on his wrist to give himself something to focus on, but since he stole the idea from Tim it was pretty useless at helping him forget about Tim. One night when Tim was wearing that damn button sweater, the one that made Armie want to run his hands up and down it and play his spine like a goddamn piano, Armie couldn’t take it anymore, launched into one of their mock wrestling matches on Tim’s hotel room bed, and the hair tie got tangled up in Tim’s buttons until Armie couldn’t tell their arms apart. He’d never felt indistinguishable from someone before. That the someone was Tim felt to him like his life’s greatest honor.

And then there was the L’Officiel party, the cracks in Armie by now extending to destabilize his marriage, and all he could think to do was to beg Tim to attend, to ground him, to put something beneath him so he’d stop sliding, and Tim just did it, no questions asked, showed up halfway across the country in goofy socks with that solar-flare smile. Tim was happy to do whatever Armie asked all night, distract Liz or talk to Armie over cigarettes, but by the end of the night Armie was tipsy, and  _ it was his party goddamn it _ , and he followed Timmy into the men’s room when he was sure no one else was there, pushed him into a stall, Tim’s eyes on him wide and questioning and trusting and  _ excited _ , and he kissed Tim then for the first time as Armie, not as Oliver, and Tim kissed back confident and relieved, and all Armie could do was hiss  _ wait for me _ and Tim said  _ you don’t know how long I’ve waited to tell you I will. _

And then there was London, Tim wrapping his film and packing for the States, not knowing it was the day the divorce papers had been filed, and it was raining because it was London, and Armie was wet through in his only outfit and he felt weirdly shy knocking so it came out as a timid tap that he had to repeat four times before Tim answered. But when he’d seen Armie standing there in his wet trenchcoat, no luggage, and seen a hand reach for him with no ring on it, Tim knew, and he said  _ I waited  _ and Armie said  _ I came as soon as I could _ and then there was nothing left to say.

And then there was the day in the Caymans, the sun so bright Armie swore it was Crema, Tim’s first time in the islands. Tim teasing  _ why are you showing me so many places where you were miserable?  _ and Armie stopping along the beach, turning to him in the sunset, fumbling for an object in his pocket, answering  _ because I had to go through all those places to find out that you’re where I belong _ . And he wondered why Tim laughed until he saw him fumbling in his pockets too,  _ you beat me to it, I guess tall guys like us don’t need to get down on our knees anyway, and of course yes. Yes. Yes. _

And now.

Now.

Under an arbor at Luca’s villa, in front of Luca himself and Tim’s family and Nick and Ashton and six rows of people who know him and see him and love him, Armie realizes the officiant is finishing the vows, which have been a blur but Armie sees from Tim’s face that he has said “I do” at all the right times. There’s a ring on his finger now, and he wore one in the same spot for years, but this one feels heavier, fated, permanent. Tim’s reaching for him, finally, to kiss him in front of a crowd of people,  _ well we’ve certainly got practice at this _ , but this time they’re themselves and no one will ever take that away.

When their lips meet Armie feels the sliding, the endless tumbling that had started years before, stop dead as if there’s a weight under it. As if a whole other planet he didn’t know existed had stopped his avalanche, and he knows that planet is Tim.

Armie sighs. Closes his eyes. And knows Tim will always be there when he opens them again.


End file.
